


Prince of Hearts

by messageredacted



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything in your life so far has been built up of layers of irony and misdirection and sarcasm and secrets and intrigue. Jake is one refreshing layer and you just… love it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prince of Hearts

You fell in love with Jake a year ago today.

Or maybe it was earlier than that. Who knows. All you know is that one year ago you were talking to him on Pesterchum and it just suddenly became clear in your head. You love talking to him. You love saying things that make him laugh, and you even love saying things that piss him off. You think it’s adorable that he’s so gullible and will believe anything you tell him. You love that he’s so honest and open about everything. Guileless. You’re fourteen years old and everything in your life so far has been built up of layers of irony and misdirection and sarcasm and secrets and intrigue. Jake is one refreshing layer and you just… love it.

You think about it as you sit on the floor of your bedroom, the pieces of your next robot spread around you. Your dreamself is reading a Dersite newspaper, sitting cross-legged on his bed. There’s nothing of note in the paper and your mind wanders back to Jake.

Obviously you can’t ever tell him. He lives on the other side of the world and neither of you can afford the trip. Maybe in the future, if you both play this game, you’ll meet in person, but you don’t know if that’s ever going to happen. You don’t believe in long distance relationships. Telling him how you feel will only make your Pesterchum conversations painfully awkward. It’s one thing to flirt jokingly, but to actually say something honest? No. It would ruin everything you have.

##

You make him things. When you design the robot model on your computer, you know that it’s not just the robot you’re sculpting, but Jake. You’re making him into a weapon, a tool to be used. Maybe not to be used by _you_ , specifically, but you want him to be the best he can be. You can make him into something great.

And he wants it too. He wants to be the hero. He wants to desecrate tombs and walk away from explosions and pose on a mountain ledge, pistols drawn, coat flapping in the wind. He wants to save the day. You send him the robot a piece at a time, along with detailed instructions, and he reconstructs it on his end. You laugh when he tells you about the first time it kicks his ass.

GT: Saints alive i dont think i can do that again!  
GT: *wipes sweat from brow*  
GT: I dont think ill be able to walk for a week  
TT: I can install a novice setting if you want.  
TT: You would have a chance at beating that.  
GT: Could you? I dont mean to complain but i think it would be less bruising to my ego to win once in a while!  
TT: I’ll write up a system update.  
GT: Thank you, good sir!   
GT: And thank you again for sending me the robot in the first place. Its good to know i have a chum like you out there.  
GT: I dont know what ive done to deserve this gift. Ill have to think of something to send you in return.  
TT: Nah, it’s fine. It helps me to get the feedback from your fights. I only really have myself to test the models so it’s good to get another test subject in there.  
GT: Oh! Well then im glad i could help.

Your next step is to make him less gullible.

##

He hates the auto-responder. He sees it as a betrayal of his trust. And you like that he trusts you, you really do. But he trusts _everyone_.

Action heroes aren’t gullible. Indiana Jones doesn’t believe everything everyone says to him. That’s what gets people killed. And maybe there is a certain honesty in a good physical fight with a sparring partner, but people cheat in the real world. Jake’s never seen the real world. Jake lives alone and his only interaction with society is through terrible movies. He was raised by Hollywood. Maybe it’s not a surprise that he has such a well-developed suspension of disbelief.

And yeah, maybe his gullibility is one of the things you love about him. But the thing is, you’re a cynical person. You’re manipulative. You lie. You have so many layers, even you don’t know what’s at the bottom. And loving him makes you feel like some sort of sexual predator. As far as you know, he doesn’t even like guys. Every conversation you have with him has this undercurrent of untruth to it, because you are withholding information from him and he doesn’t even suspect.

Is it so wrong to want him to grow up a little, so that you won’t feel like some sort of pervert for liking him?

##

And sometimes you think, _if I tell him how I feel, he’ll accept it._

_He’ll give me a chance because he’s open-minded and he’s my friend._

Maybe, by making him less trusting, you’re just giving him a defense against _you_.

##

TG: ur a mamnipulative dicjk sometimes you know that?  
TG: *manipulative  
TG: *dick  
TG: were not all your pupppets  
TT: You’re saying this as if you think I don’t already know.  
TG: its like youj feel you have to orchestatrate this wole game  
TG: *whole  
TG: you dont even SLEEP  
TT: Of course I don’t sleep. That has nothing to do with me being a manipulative dick. But why is it a bad thing to want to make sure that this game goes according to plan?  
TG: we shouldnt even be playing this game  
TT: There is literally no way to avoid it.  
TG: lol  
TG: sure there is  
TG: just DONT PLAY  
TG: thats my planm  
TT: I’ve already woken up on Derse. I’ve seen you there. We wouldn’t exist there if we hadn’t already started.  
TG: well see about THAT wont we  
TT: I know you think that this is playing right into the batterwitch’s hands, but avoiding the game isn’t going to help.  
TT: Yes, I think this has been her plan all along.  
TT: But since there’s no way to avoid it, we have to make sure we can set it up to our advantage.  
TG: lucky for us we have sucjh a MANIPNUALTIVE DICK on our side, am i right?

##

You miss your brother. It’s been so long since you’ve interacted with anyone real. You strife with your robots and you talk with your friends online. You don’t pity yourself, though. You don’t have it as bad as Jake, who lives so far from civilization. You could go out and find people if you really wanted to. But there’s a certain fiction that has to be maintained. For one thing, you’re underage and you’re living pretty much on your own and if anyone gets wind of _that_ , things will go south really fucking fast.

It’s just that it would be nice to touch someone once in a while. Something beyond accidentally brushing your hand against the pizza delivery guy’s when you hand him change, or bumping into someone at the supermarket. It would be nice to hear a voice that isn’t coming through your headphones.

Roxy’s in the same situation as you. She deals with it by drinking pretty much constantly. You deal with it in the only way you know how: making sure that no one ever knows how fucking difficult this is.

##

You catch the auto-responder flirting with Jake.

The auto-responder was seeded by an imprint of your thirteen-year-old brain. You’d made the imprint right before your realization about how you felt about Jake, so it’s not really surprising that the AR has some proto-feelings about him. Those feelings could have developed in interesting ways over the years. And maybe an AI seeded by a preternaturally intelligent thirteen-year-old is also capable of being a manipulative dick in its own inscrutable ways. You think the AR has his own plans, and you don’t know if they’re in your favor or not.

But while the AR is teaching Jake to be a little less trusting of everyone he talks to online, it’s also slipping him bits of the old Strider charm. Dampening his immune system, as it were. Maybe when (if) you get around to dropping the bombshell on Jake, he’ll have had enough exposure to it that he could be used to the idea.

If he does say yes to you, is he doing it because he likes you? Or because he’s been subjected to a multi-year campaign of subconscious exploitation?

Sometimes you really hate yourself.

##

It’s hard to lead two lives at once. If you focus on your Derse self, your real self suffers, and vice versa. You don’t sleep so you don’t have the luxury of focusing on just one or the other. When you need to focus on Derse, often you’ll get in the shower and just stand there with your eyes closed, feeling the water rain down on you. It’s mindless and comforting and it lets you focus on your espionage, preparing for the start of the game. You have so many plans in motion. So many tiny details you have to arrange.

Often you’ll open your eyes and realize an hour has passed, or two, or five. You’ll pay attention to a conversation with Jake or Roxy or Jane and when you next look out the window of your tower on Derse, the sun will have set. It’s difficult to focus on both your lives at once. But you can do it.

If you get too lost in thought, the AR will ping you until it gets your attention. It—he—thinks you’re losing it. He wants you to let him handle more of your real life concerns. But he _would_ , wouldn’t he? He’s you, and you can’t let things just happen naturally without trying to influence them in some way.

That’s going to be your downfall, isn’t it? Micromanaging everything unto death. You just can’t leave well enough alone. You are always going to be there behind the scenes, pulling the strings, and nothing is ever going to be a mystery because everything that happens only happens because you forced it to. It’s just how you are and anyone who doesn’t get that had better stay the fuck away for their own safety.

When the time comes and you tell Jake how you feel, you will never know whether his response is honestly his.

They say you’re going to be the destroyer of hearts. You know that’s true, because you’re starting right here with your own.


End file.
